Hank Williams' gospel to infuse church service

**FILE** Sony/ATV Music Publishing will buy the oldest and one of the richest song catalogs in country music from Gaylord Entertainment for $157 million, Gaylord officials announced on Tuesday, July 2, 2002. Songwriters who once wrote for the company include Hank Williams Sr., seen here in an undated file photo. Acuff-Rose Music Publishing, founded by country singer Roy Acuff and songwriter Fred Rose in 1942, includes classics like "Oh Pretty Woman," "Bye Bye Love," "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "TennesseeWaltz." (AP Photo/File) HOUCHRON CAPTION (12/31/2002): Hank Williams, shown in an undated photo, was only 29 when he died on his way to a New Year's Day 1953 concert in Canton, Ohio. HOUCHRON CAPTION (01/01/2003): Williams. HOUCHRON CAPTION (08/03//2005) SECSTAR: THE LEGEND: Singer Hank Williams. less

**FILE** Sony/ATV Music Publishing will buy the oldest and one of the richest song catalogs in country music from Gaylord Entertainment for $157 million, Gaylord officials announced on Tuesday, July 2, 2002. ... more

Hank Williams' recording career lasted only six years. But the country-music legend sketched out a lifetime of song in that short spell with lyrics that touched on sin and redemption, torment and release, love found and love lost.

Tormented by back pain and marital woes, gripped by alcoholism and a penchant for pills and, at times, morphine, Williams died in the back of a Cadillac on New Year's Day 1953 at age 29. He left behind a body of work that provided a template for country music, with all the heartache and drinking that genre implied for decades. But Williams' secular music represents just one part of his body of work. He recorded and performed numerous hymns and also wrote his own country gospel songs, including his most enduring, "I Saw the Light."

This Hank Williams was the inspiration for the Big Country Mass, Trinity Episcopal Church's service this Sunday morning that will be based on Williams' music. So the beer-centric "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" will be bypassed in favor of more fitting fare, such as "Lord, Build Me a Cabin" and "Old Country Church."

The service will open with Williams' "Calling You":

More Information

The event

What: Big Country Mass

When: 11 a.m. Sunday

Where: Trinity Episcopal Church, 1015 Holman

Information: 713-528-4100

"Calling you, calling you

Can't you hear the blessed Savior calling you?

He will take you by the hand lead you to that promised land

Can't you hear the blessed Savior calling you?"

"It's all in the spirit of just connecting people," Trinity rector the Rev. Hannah Atkins says. "Hank Williams is kind of a sad story - certainly his life - but his music was incredibly connected to the human experience. So many people from so many walks of life can relate to it."

The Big Country Mass springs from a successful annual jazz festival held at Trinity, where the Sunday jazz Mass is among the church's most attended services outside Christmas and Easter.

"We wanted to try something new," Atkins says. "We tried to get a blues Mass going, but some of the musicians were a little wary. I tried to tell them we wanted the lamenting blues, not the raunchy blues."

Atkins hopes parishioners will bring friends and that the service "might reach out to some music lovers and people who might not necessarily come to church."

Palmer Episcopal Church tried a similar service starting in 2008 based on the music of the rock band U2. The U2charist had been developed in a Maryland church four years earlier, before making its way to Houston.

The Big Country Mass reunites Trinity with pianist and composer Paul English, who served as director of the church's jazz ensemble for several years before taking a break last year. English is not to be confused with the drummer of the same name, who has played with Willie Nelson for nearly a half century. ("He's led a much more interesting life than I have," English says, laughing.) They discussed several country performers for the idea, timing it to the rodeo, and think it could become an annual event that spotlights what English calls "the great shared history between country and gospel."

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"We just felt like he was a country icon with a strong spiritual side to him," English says. "He has so many spiritually oriented songs. And they're so recognizable and accessible."

English assembled a terrific band of local and regional players that includes steel guitarist Brian Thomas, fiddler Leslie Sloan, guitarist Bryan Harkness (who toured with country great and Williams' old friend Ray Price), bassist Rankin Peters and drummer Steve Allison.

Atkins describes the service as "sort of a dialogue sermon with the music." She has written some meditations based on the music that will tie it into the service.

"Out of this life of pain and sorrow and hardship there's still this great sense of creativity and life," she says. "And his music lives on. It connects with people during the ups and downs of their lives."